Sir Nigel Hawthorne died on this day in 2001
Actor Nigel Hawthorne is best known for playing Sir Humphry Appleby in the television series Yes Minister which ran from 1980 until 1984, and its sequel series Yes Prime Minister which ran from 1986 until 1980.
Aside from playing the bureaucrat who is the master of manipulation and obfuscation, Hawethorne has a celebrated career in theatre and film.
Hawthorne was born in England in 1929 but grew up in South Africa after his family emigrated when he was a young child. He returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950’s to follow his dreams of being an actor. While much of his early career was filled with character roles, it was after he found success on television in his fifties that larger roles opened up for him.
He appeared in Sir Richard Attenborough’s biopic Gandhi and appeared opposite Clint Eastwood in the cold war thriller Firefox, and later starred alongside Sylvester Stallone and newcomer Sandra Bullock in the sci-fi action-comedy Demolition Man.
His most acclaimed performance came in the Alan Bennett play The Madness of King George III for which he received an Oliver Award. He reprised the role in the film version and was nominated for the Best Actor award at The Oscars. He later appeared in the Stephen Spielberg film Armistead.
Hawthorne was kept his personal life private and was involuntarily outed in the publicity surrounding his Academy Award nomination. He met his partner Trevor Bentham in 1968 and they were together until Hawthorne’s death in 2001.
He died of a heart attack aged 72, although he had been receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer at the time. Nigel Hawthorne was appointed a Commander of the Order f the British Empire in 1987 and was knighted in 1999 New Year’s Honour List.
Photographer Herb Ritts died in 2002
Photographer Herb Ritts was just 50 years old when he passed away from complications related to an infection from pneumonia. While Ritts was HIV positive, the form of pneumonia he contracted was not pneumocystis pneumonia, a common opportunistic infection encountered by people living with HIV.
During his life he created hundreds of iconic photographs and music videos, often in black and white. Among his most famous images are portraits of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson and many other celebrities.
He first found success as a photographer shooting his friend, the actor Richard Gere. In 1981 he photographed the cover of Olivia Newton-John’s Physical album, a few years later he shot an almost identical image for the cover of Madonna’s True Blue record.
He went on to shoot hundreds of magazine and album covers, working with Tina Turner, Britney Spears, Bjork, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, David Bowie, Mariah Carey, and many others. He was also well known for his photographs of super models.
His first music video was for Madonna, his clip for Cherish emulated his photography, black and white, filled with models. He went on to make videos for Janet Jackson, Chris Isaak, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez and many others.
Author Arthur Miller was born on this day in 1891
Author Henry Miller was born on this day in 1891. He’s best known for his books Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and the trilogy Sexus, Nexus and Plexus. Miller was married several times and had a well-documented affair with erotic writer Anais Nin.
His books were often banned in his homeland – the United States, and he is credited with creating the genre of semi-autobiographical novels. Scholars have put forward the case that repressed homosexuality was a theme throughout some of this works. The author was married five times.
OIP Staff
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